Christin's Words from Sunshine Hill

Monday, March 4, 2013

The Next Big Thing

For the first time I’ve been tagged in a blogging project.
Writers are lifting up their Next Big Thing for all the world to see. . . most
often right in the midst of writing it! Thanks to my dear friend and stunning
poet, Kathleen Jesme, for tagging me. Please do yourself a big favor and visit
Kath’s blog http://kathleenjesme.blogspot.com/

I’ll be inviting a few other writers to participate and
you will be able to find links to their blogs right here in the next couple of
days.

Here’s the interview:

What
is your working title of your book?

Right now I’m calling it The Yearning. That could change before I’m through. Not only do I
tend to change titles as the writing becomes more focused, but publishers also
change titles for marketing purposes.

Where did the idea come from for the
book?

Everywhere? I’m being only slightly facetious. My
consciousness of the world and my part in it has fascinated and terrified me. Never
have I been able to get my mind around it—not even the most imaginative part of
my mind. I never could settle on one life, on my life. Having a more interior than exterior sort of personality,
I explored the inner regions. I dreamed, contemplated, prayed, and studied the
mystical, poetic, musical, artistic traditions. I’ve tried to capture the
energy of the inner regions in novels and books of spirituality. But friends urged
me: “Write your story.

What genre does your book fall under?

One author called a similar book his spiritual autobiography.
As a genre, it probably comes closest. Memoir is too compact for what I have in
mind. Mystic Journey is tempting, but probably is not a genre. Maybe I ought to
turn it into another novel where I might be able to get closer to the truth.

Which actors would you choose to play
your characters in a movie rendition?

I wouldn’t choose to have a movie rendition. But that
isn’t really the question, is it? Unfortunately I pay little attention to
actors so if I did need to choose I’d get people off the street of a small Midwestern
town.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your
book?

This question reminds me of a soap opera that was on the
radio when I was a child back in the 1940s. “Can a girl from a little mining
town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy, entitled Englishman?”
It stayed with me over sixty years, so I guess one-sentence synopses do stand
the test of time. I suppose mine might
be “Can a dreamy little girl from the Minnesota lakes and boggy wilds overcome
her fear and find ground steady enough on which to build her one wild and
unrepeatable life?”

Will your book be self-published or
represented by an agency?

Most likely I’ll send it to my agent first, just to test
the waters. But to be bluntly truthful, turning a manuscript over to a publisher
seems rarely a good idea anymore, especially if they have the electronic
rights. That way the writer can never get the publishing rights back because
the book is legally never out of publication. During the past few years I’ve
been experimenting with e-publishing on Kindle, and print on demand with Amazon’s
CreateSpace. Most writers have weighed the pros and cons. Sometimes it is the
nature of the book itself that determines the form of publication. Sometimes it
is the reader for whom the book searches.

There still exists, however, that glow, that rush, that
pride of being published by a house that only takes the best authors, the finest
works.

How long did it take you to write the
first draft of your manuscript?

I’ve been writing bits and pieces of it for thirty years
– but the real work started in June, 2012. The first draft is about one-third
complete.

What other books would you compare this
story to within your genre?

Karen
Armstrong’s The Spiral Staircase

Annie
Dillard’s Holy the Firm

Justin
O’Brien’s Walking with a Himalayan Master

Irina
Tweedie’s Daughter of Fire

Petru
Dumitriu, To The Unknown God

John
of the Cross, Fire of Divine Love

Who or what inspired you to write this
book?

My
husband, author John R. Sack was already in the process of researching his own
book on the mystic way of the second half of life. We sat together reading the
works of St. John of the Cross. It came to John to use the saint’s thoughts. It
came to me to employ the saint’s structure…that of poetry giving way to the mystical
experience of oneness in love.

The Root of Beauty

THE EDGE OF TENDERNESS

THE BLUE SHAWL

The FarNear Journals

GYPSY BONES

Twitter

About Me

I'm a writer and observer of beauty in nature and people, a singer of praise and a dreamer who stares into both light and darkness hoping to see someday the Face of God.
My journey has led from the northern lakes, to a convent on the prairie, to lifelong education including a doctorate in ministry, to a vocation of midwifery of souls, to this place, Casa Chiara, where the light shines and John Sack and I join our lives, care for nature, pray and contemplate, study and write.
Published Works:
THE ROOT OF BEAUTY: A SPIRITUAL MEMOIR, THE EDGE OF TENDERNESS: A MEMOIR, THE BLUE SHAWL,THE FARNEAR JOURNALS, GYPSY BONES,
ALTAR MUSIC,
CIRCLE OF MYSTERIES,
WOMANCHRIST,
BLESSINGS,
FINDING STONE,
CARING COMMUNITY,
A CRY IN THE DESERT.
Los Angeles Times Best Novel of 2000 for ALTAR MUSIC.
Recipient of four prizes/commendations for CIRCLE OF MYSTERIES.